Greetings from (over and over again) Astbury Park, NJ

”Consumers expect to have another experience based on a (game) franchise. The same is true, on a psychological basis, in the music business,” [Sony Computer Entertainment America president Kaz] Hirai says. ”You don’t call Born in the USA ‘Bruce Springsteen 7.’ But if you want to go back and experience the world of Bruce Springsteen again, you buy his new album. It is catering to consumer wants and needs to re-experience that artist, that franchise or that motion picture.” The key, he says, is that developers must also continue to ”keep pushing the envelope with new franchises so they will be next year’s sequels.”

Perhaps it’s just me, that seems like a mind-bendingly odd (and faintly depressing) way to look at the work of an musician; and it doesn’t do that much for gaming either.